Review
ZERO stars!
I don’t even know where to start in writing this because this hotel is so bad in every single area. Please learn from our mistake and change your booking before coming here. You will not have a good time here. I so wish I listened to the bad reviews and changed my booking before coming here. To try and be brief I will summarise what it has been like in this nightmare hotel:
Rooms: changed rooms 4 times so far. First room like a prison room only with 4 single beds in 1 room. Air con does not work properly anywhere, rooms never get cool. Electrics faulty everywhere, tv does not work, no mini fridge, no SAFE!!!, balcony overlooks ugly alleyway/road, balcony door is not lockable, water cuts out mid shower, bathroom light does not work, main light switch in one of ours rooms was hanging off and crackling. There is not a single nice room in the whole hotel, weve seen 4 different rooms. Towels do not get changed here.
Pool: almost every tile around the pool is cracked, broken and dirty. Multiple children cut their feet. Drain around the pool completely broken leaving big gaps all around the pool everyday. Dangerous. On day 4 of holiday the pool water TURNED GREEN!!! It stayed like this for 2 days and multiple complaints to reception, lifeguard, manager. Dirty and dangerous.
THEFT!: on day 6 of holiday, between 8pm and 11pm when we were eating dinner, someone went into our room and stole 2x pairs sunglasses, 3x packs cigerettes, 1x bottle Hugo boss aftershave, 2x pairs shorts, and a pair of NIKE air force 1 trainers (my only pair for holiday). Reception would not call police for over 6 hours. And only did call when our Tunisian friend from uk arrived and helped us. Reception was telling us for 6 hours that the police were coming, but they hadn’t even been called by hotel. Been reported to police now, but still not got stuff back. It is so unsafe here.
Food: breakfast is terrible. Everything is sparse and stale. Egg/pancake cooking station is only
Edible thing but it is filthy. There is not a single bowl or spoons in this hotel! Have to eat cereal either off a plate or out of a paper cup. Lunch and dinner is same everyday, no choice, fish is full of bones, chicken is literally just chicken bones - no meat. No fries. Just rice everyday. They have a pizza oven, but they ran out of cheese for 3 days, so making pizzas with no cheese.
Drinks: drinks are never served in matching glasses. The hotel has about 15 mismatching glasses for the whole hotel, and all the glasses are tiny. Hot drinks are out of a coffee machine into a tiny paper cup. Soft drinks are served from a plastic 2l bottle like from a supermarket into tiny plastic cups. the only bar open is the bar in reception, so trek upstairs from pool to reception for a mouthful of drink because cups and glasses so small or non existent. Ran out of beer for 3 days so was serving out of beer cans and sharing between guests. Ran out of red wine for 2 days. Ran out of Rose wine for 2 days. No tonic on offer, guests buying their own tonic from shop and keeping behind bar for a gin and tonic.
Spa/gym: spa pool has no water in it and is closed. Gym being used to hang washing on the broken equipment, asked to use but it is closed, electrics broken everywhere. Partner was pestered so much about a massage on first 2 days, he had one, turns out the masseurs (males and female) are prostitutes in this hotel- after 20 minutes massage, then they offered sex for 200 dinars. Same happened to another guest we spoke to.
Staff: staff are not friendly here. Asking for even the most basic things like a drink at the bar, you are treated like an inconvenience. Animation team are all males and are like a gang of thugs in the hotel, very intimidating, someone in our group asked to turn the music down as it is on max volume and ear piercing - animation team squared up to her a female and told her to leave and never come back - it was so scary. Animation team don’t wear a uniform and has different members everyday, like a gang of kids roaming free thinking they own the hotel, and they are there to make themselves happy not for guests. All day, everyday there are people at reception screaming and shouting about something - and they are right! Manager sometimes comes but when I spoke to him he just walked off mid/conversation. There are multiple people in the hotel that push excursions on you daily, this is so annoying. They also try to rip you off. ‘Abdul’ tried to sell us excursion to crocodile farm for £50 per person (£200 in total). We did it ourselves by taxi, the whole day including travel and entry fee for 4 people was £33 for whole thing. Challenged Abdul on his pricing, but he back-tracked saying he meant £50 for whole trip. This was a lie, we have screenshot of the WhatsApp conversation. Everyone here just wants your money and to scam you. We are not stupid people except for staying here!
Lift: broken the whole holiday
Shisha lounge: closed whole holiday
Pool bar: derelict - closed whole holiday
WiFi: there is no wifi in the whole hotel, only if you stand directly next to the router in reception
Beach bar: derelict - it is open but it is like a broken shed on the beach with a few broken parasols , and broken loungers, they also do not serve alcohol on the beach bar. Djerba beach is filled with sea weed in the water and in the sand - Djerba beach is not beautiful at all. and camels and horses walk up and down constantly and all their poop is everywhere including in the water floating - no one picks it up. And there are a lot of camels and horses here so you can imagine how much poop.
Outside hotel: this hotel is in the “tourist zone”. This area is not like a tourist zone - it is like a war-zone. Every other building (and there aren’t many) is derelict, empty, decaying. Even cafes and restaurants look derelict, broken tables, chairs, signs. There is strong smell of sewage in the streets of Djerba everywhere. Stray dogs roam the streets. Horse and Camel poo everywhere. No promenade on/near the beach either, only a main dual carriage way further inland. There is no nice place to walk at day or night, no strip of restaurants or shops. Just sparse and run down and derelict everywhere.
Overall: we wanted to change hotels within first 24 hours of this holiday, but our tour operator has also been completely unhelpful, not returning calls or emails. We also had friends driving down from Hammamet for a few days of our holiday to stay for 3 nights at this hotel. Whilst they were driving down is the night we were robbed. Our friend is also from Tunisia (Hammamet) so is Arabic/french speaking so wanted to come and help us especially translating to police and hotel after the robbery. Our friends go to Hammamet every year and they said they will never return to Djerba. This hotel has ruined their holiday too. They are returning to Hammamet today, and I plan to spend the rest of today finding flights home as we can’t be moved and I cannot stay another night here.